With the editable templates, creating and maintaining templates is no longer a developer-only task. A type of power-user, who is called a template author, can now create templates. Developers are still required to setup the environment, create client libraries, and create the components to be used, but once these basics are in place the template author has the flexibility to create and configure templates without a development project.

All pages in We.Retail are based on editable templates, allowing non-developers to adapt and customize the templates.

Trying it out

Note that the mode selector no longer offers a Design mode. All pages for We.Retail are based on editable templates and to alter the design of editable templates they must be edited in the template editor.

From the Page information menu select Edit Template.

You are now editing the Hero Page template.

The structure mode of the page allows you to modify the structure of the template. This includes for example the components that are allowed in the layout container.

Configure the policies for the Layout Container to define which components are allowed in the container.

Policies are the equivalent of design configurations.

In the design dialog of the layout container, you can

Select an existing policy or create a new policy for the container

Select which components are allowed in the container

Define the default components to be placed when an asset is dragged to the container

Back in the template editor, you can edit the policy of the text component within the layout container.

This allows you to:

Select an existing policy or create a new policy for the container

Define the features available to the page author when using this component such as

Allowed paste sources

Formatting options

Allowed paragraph styles

Allowed special characters

Many components based on the core components allow the configuration of options at the component level through the editable templates, removing the need for customization by developers.

Back in the template editor, you can use the mode selector to change to Initial Content mode to define what content is required on the page.

Layout mode can be used as it is on a normal page to define the layout for the template.